Folks, I searched our archives to see if this had been posted on
our newsgroup, and there was only one report of a Stygian Owl
anywhere......from a Mexico trip over the holidays.

The American sighting was in south Texas also during the Christmas
holidays and was well documented/photographed. Though the first reliable
sighting of this South American species within our borders, it is not
common even in its home range. Peruse a beautiful photograph of this
owl on Charles Duncan's (Director of the University of Maine at Machias
Institute for Field Ornithology) WEB site. This is in the category of the
mother-of-all-life-birds; I'm still looking forward to seeing a Snowy Owl!

See owl at: www.umm.maine.edu/~cduncan/stygian

Enjoy, and I'll put in a little plug here for the Institute's wonderful
birding workshops. Well worth saving a year for, I've already reserved a
spot for the Warblers Workshop to be held in Machias, ME this summer.
This group hosted the Sparrows Workshop at Sierra Vista, AZ in Jan 96 (and
I've already signed up again for the Jan 98 session, yikes, 4:30AM
mornings again! These are "serious-birder" within-USA workshops at select
locations, a fine value for the money, with great field-trips, high-level
class instruction, and patient expert leaders. Check out all the info on
the Univ of ME at Machias' WEB site, www.umm.maine.edu/ifo.

Maureen E. Ellis me2 at u.washington Univ of WA and Des Moines WA